The SEOTuners Blog

Monthly Archives: July 2017

Google has revealed that Google Posts, content for search results, is now a part of Google My Business, a product created by the company to help businesses manage their presence across all of Google as per the company, from search engine results to social networking and more.

Explaining Google Posts & GMB

Aside from Google local optimization and other SEO services, Google My Business continues the trend of offering businesses and entrepreneurs direct access to how their business appears on Google’s search engine results.

By inputting the name of a business, potential customers not only get more information about the business through third-party websites, blogs and social networks filled with related content, but through Google itself.

Google as “The Search Engine”

It’s a bit futile to speculate on the future of Google as a business – the only relevant research to be made is the research that the here and now relies on – but it’s also obvious that Google is continuing its gradual move to evolve and improve the way people and businesses interact.

Although Google started as simple search engine, they’re embracing their current form as the Internet’s greatest and most useful tool for finding and identifying content. Google helps businesses connect with people who need them, and it helps people connect with the services and products they’re looking for. Through Google Posts and GMB, Google offers customers a better insight into what kind of company any given business is.

Instead of partnering with other social networks or websites that already provide a platform of businesses and customers to communicate and keep in touch, Google is banking on its significance and importance as a search engine, with Google Posts showing up in search results as a further incentive for businesses to use Google My Business, and continuously rely on Google to find new customers, attract more traffic, and build a better, stronger web presence.

While doing so, Google is expanding the functionality and usefulness of Google Post to ensure that businesses and entrepreneurs have an efficient way of updating their customers, sending out posts on sales and upcoming events in a press release-like manner.

We can only guess what Google will plan next to further consolidate their power as a communications and business platform on the net.

2017 has reached a flaming mid-point, while signaling the middle between 2015 and the new decade, and marking a clear uptick in several trends across all forms of marketing involving a few similar concepts such as instantaneous content and communication, automated data, and a general attraction towards white hat SEO services, instead of less effective dirty tricks.

Small Business Transparency

Businesses that are transparent about how they function, who they represent and how they make their products and/or services work will attract more customers.

Consumer-Involved Marketing

Similarly, there will be a marked shift towards involving consumers not just in marketing, but even in product design and other suggestions. Customers will want to have a part in running the business, and working that balance without devolving into chaos will be a challenge for businesses.

A Shift to Instant

Consumers are beginning to get used to getting everything, always, and at any time – and the newer generations are going to be even more insistent on instant delivery of content and information, as well as (eventually) products. Focusing on speed as a perk and feature is important.

More and More Visual

Text has always been a bit more boring than video and photo, but it’s also usually been king. This is markedly changing with visual content becoming quickly more important than words.

Pairing Business with Content Creators

Influencers are already a part of bigger companies – but smaller local business will also have to leverage the popularity of local influencers and content creators to gain popularity online.

Automation (Everywhere)

From AI to actual job automation, algorithms and robots will take over more work in 2017 than any previous year, and this includes data and analytics even in digital marketing. It’s cheap, efficient, and needs neither sleep nor a salary.

Mostly Mobile

While many continue to browse on laptops and PCs, smartphone usage has exploded, with people using their phones to track their fitness, tell time, communicate, browse, play, and generally lead most of their digital lives.

Less Hand-Holding

Intrusive advertising and marketing methods that take away the freedom a consumer must explore and find products on their own will irritate rather than aid customers in making decisions and getting to the checkout page.

Effective Communication

Businesses will have to further invest in direct and near-instant communication with customers through social networks, especially on raw and more intimate forms of communication like Snapchat.

Outsource Everything

In 2017, businesses will have to look outside to stall a plateau in growth. Sometimes, beating the competition means hiring someone from the outside – even into a managerial position in digital marketing – to get things done.

These are a couple concrete concepts that will gain more traction over the rest of the year, and the next few years to follow.

Several months ago, search engine giant Google announced an upcoming feature to the way mobile search engine optimization functions, insofar that websites would have to pay heed to their implementation of mobile interstitials as per Google, or else suffer the consequences of a penalty to their online search rankings.

Mobile interstitials have often been a simple and highly effective, if arguably irritating way to build traffic to a specific product or page, and even rake in sales. Typically, an interstitial takes the form of a large intrusive pop-up with a very small removal icon, sometimes giving the first-glance impression of being on another page, or interstitials that completely block the view of content for no good reason other than advertisement or other promotions.

Google made the decision that these interstitials are counterintuitive to a quality browsing experience, and have instituted rules regarding their usage. However, the crackdown isn’t as far-reaching as some might expect.

Exceptions to the Rule

The three broad types of interstitials that would be largely untouched “if used responsibly” (in a way that did not greatly hinder the browsing experience) include:

Interstitials that fulfill a legal requirement, such as an age verification.

Interstitials that use a reasonable amount of screen space (mostly unobtrusive) while being easily dismissible.

On top of that, interstitials found deeper within a website (on non-indexed pages, unavailable through Google’s results. As such, if a visitor finds a page not through Google but through the website itself, and is confronted with an interstitial, the use of that interstitial will not be penalized.

The Effects of the Penalty

Google began initiating the penalty as far back as November, but it wasn’t until January that it truly became an official part of Google’s mobile SEO algorithm.

Basically, Google would check through a signal for use of such interstitials on indexed pages, and would implement a penalty to your page’s potential in rankings, to help crack down on their usage.

While apparently the changes have not been immediate, it’s clear that this web design and marketing tactic will require the expertise of a penalty recovery and design expert to correct.